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Thursday, November 20, 2008

High school – love it, hate it or just endure it!Teens receive a lot of stick about their general behaviour but adolescent life has never been easy,especially in today’s society. Rumors and reputations often run rife in school,and it can all become too much to handle when there are already so many other fundamental issues to deal with,like sexual identity and development, romance, ethical pressures, and peer pressure – that’s just mentioning a few! Sometimes, it can all add up to a pretty traumatic experience and, the sad reality is,that some girls (and guys) buckle under all that physiological pressure and end up taking their own life.

Jay Asher’s debut novel, Thirteen Reasons Why, relates well to these contemporary pressures and it will tug at your heartstrings.The story is of Hannah, a girl who takes her own life, and is told in dual narratives, through Hannah herself and her classmate,and admirer, Clay. Hannah leaves a bunch of tapes on which she’s recorded her reasons why she chose to commit suicide. Some of those tapes can be heard here. The story is both intricate and compelling and reminds us that there’s always so much more to a person that just what’s on the surface.

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comments:

I, too, was approached by the marketing dept for this book and was intrigued. I ran out and bought a copy of the book and I gotta tell ya --- I read it in one sitting (4 hrs). Absolutely wonderful book! I literally felt all the teenage angst flooding back. Perhaps this would be a good one for parents of teens, as well as young adults.

The book isn't what I'd call creepy, but it is pretty heavy. I thought it was very well done, though it did get a tad melodramatic for my tastes in certain places (such a fine line, especially in YA). Definitely in the "worth reading" category, in my opinion.